M2m 2013–14: Year Four

Now in its fourth year, the Art Students League’s Model to Monument Program (M2M), directed by Greg Wyatt, is a partnership with the New York City Parks Department that will place seven monumental sculptures along the Hudson River in Riverside Park South in 2014. The seven participating artists will also create a collaborative work for Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The program represents an extraordinary opportunity for the students, chosen through a competitive juried process in 2013. As they meet the demands of producing a public sculpture from start to finish, they are learning to navigate the world of public art and gaining valuable experience for their futures as independent professional artists.

M2M is also supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, one of the world’s leading international philanthropic organizations, making grants in the areas of arts and culture, education, health and medicine, and social welfare.

Meet the Artists

A collaborative piece by all the M2Msculptors
To be installed in Van Cortlandt Park

The 2014 theme for the Riverside Park South Sculpture Trail is “The Architecture of Nature,” a broad topic in the history of art and culture, which includes the philosophical impact of Nature on Art and on humanity’s relationship to the natural world. The pre-Socratic poet and philosopher Empedocles developed the concept of the four elements: earth, ether, fire, and water, from which all forms of matter could be distinguished.

Laura BarmackJust Passing Through

Laura Barmack is a native New Yorker. Inasmuch as New York City is her City, the Hudson River is her River. She regards the opportunity to create a monumental companion sculpture for the mighty and beautiful Hudson as a uniquely personal endeavor.

Her sculpture, Just Passing Through, alludes to the idea that the River is as transient as Time. The River bends and flows like Time. Like Time, the River is subtle and elusive, advancing and slipping away before we fully comprehend the swell of its motion; in fact, the passing of the River is an analogy for the passage of a life, which may sometimes ride high and sometimes become tangled and dragged under. Running its course, the River carves a little channel, plays for a while in the sunlight, evaporates, and returns as rain.

Conceptually, the sculpture acknowledges the inextricable connection of human life to the fabric of nature. We are made of the same stuff, our molecules having been forged in the same stellar furnace. By simple extension may we address our connection to the vast Universe.

Janet Fekete-BoltonA Conversation With Nature

"God is a circle whose center is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere."
——Empedocles

Where there is elemental balance, there is love or harmony—this is the inspiration behind Janet Fekete-Bolton’s piece. Her piece incorporates the use of solar panels to provide animated bottom lighting, making the sculpture come to life. It also includes a steel box time capsule for viewers to place “gifts of nature and their writings.” The time capsule will be closed up after a year’s collection and buried with a plaque that will read, “Not to be opened for 100 years.”

Ms. Fekete-Bolton is also an accomplished photographer, especially interested in black and white photography and night scenes. Her images have been acquired by Getty Images and are part of the permanent collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, France.

Ana Sofía MartíEveryday

Ana Sofía Martí began expressing her passion for art at a very young age. As a child, she studied under the instruction of several artists in San Luis Potosí and Mexico City. As a teen, she continued her artistic studies in Paris. On her return, she studied Graphic Design at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, where she got her bachelor degree. Today, she lives and works in New York.

“I have always felt the need of expressing myself by creating objects. This need has led me to produce a series of works of art by combining different materials, shapes and colors. As a result, I have been able to create a variety of fascinating compositions that explore the wonders of urban daily life.“

Ms. Martí, a Mexican native, explains the concept of her piece: “It represents the urban life that surrounds it; changes the connection between individuals and space; evokes the relationship between the four elements and everyday life; examines the life we are living nowadays; invites people into the sculpture path and inspires them in their everyday lives.”

Lindsay McCosh studied Graphic Design and Typography at the School of Visual Arts in New York; multimedia sculpture and reliefs in handmade paper at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit; and at the Art Institude of Chicago.

Regarding her M2M piece, she states:

“I am using the visual language that already exists in the park history to express the architecture of nature. Through symbols of the four elements I am creating a monument to the train workers and the industriousness of New York City. My sculpture allows for a place to rest as well as inspires the curiosity of future generations through movement and technology.”

"I have always been interested in anthropology, origins of mankind and all the stories and folklore that come with it. Growing up I was taught the falsehoods of conventional education. I want to communicate the other stories. My work is about creating my own portal of possible truths through painting and sculpture. When people see my work, I want them to understand the relevance of the stories and origins of another culture, opening the possibilities to tolerating and appreciating the icons and heroes of others."

Ms. Sanfiorenzo's project narrative for Atabey’s Land Haven states:

"The Surpreme and beautiful mother of waters fancys herself to urban dwellers a while, by taking refuge on a small Island called “Manna Hatta” (Heavenly Place). Here she enjoys the smoke offerings by sacred fire, listening to the sonnets of her children of the Sea. Not to far is one of her many guardians and constant compi’s, who amuses her…with the tabloid stories of the City. This stop is a place of relaxation and celebration for Atabey. As her followers often lull her into the harbor with the sounds of the gentle shake of the maracas, and the rythmic beat of the drums."

Natsuki Takauji was born in 1982 in Tokyo, Japan. She received her Bachelors degree in Creative Writing from Waseda University in 2005. Since an early age, she has always had strong creative impulses. She completed several novel length manuscripts and a collection of poetry but soon realized her artistic goals could be better fulfilled by visual expression, rather than linguistic expression. After committing to the visual arts as her primary mode of expression, she quit her job as a teacher at a preparatory school in Tokyo, and moved to New York City in 2008 to study intensively under Knox Martin, Bruce Dorfman and Charles Hinman at the League.

Incorporating a swing, The Window creates a moving multi-faceted viewing experience to make viewers more aware of the complex act of perception that they take for granted. Ms. Takauji’s piece encourages viewers to consider the various dimensions of perception—from examining the two-dimensional plexi-glass surfaces of The Window, to experiencing their changing place in time and space as they swing through it.

Minako Yoshino is a New York City based fine artist working in marble sculpture and oil painting in both traditional and contemporary styles. Yoshino's art conveys a sense of complete and simple acceptance of our connectedness and identification with all things in the universe. Born in Toyama, Japan, Yoshino studied oil painting and graphic design at Musashino Art University in Tokyo before relocating to New York City to study marble carving at the Art Students League of New York. In a letter of recommendation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City stated, "All of her artwork demonstrates a remarkable combination of originality merged with a highly refined and sophisticated technical skill."

Ms. Yoshino says her M2M piece honors “the first lovers in Japanese Shinto mythology, Izanagi and Izanami,”who are said to have given birth to elements in the natural world. Ms. Yoshino would like her piece to become a symbol and meeting place for other lovers in New York City.